Charlotte Divorce Lawyer Blog

NFL getting publicity it doesn’t want with release of new domestic violence video

Published on: September 8, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can any attorney help me with my family law needs in North Carolina?”

Edit: The Baltimore Ravens have just released Ray Rice from his contract and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has announced Rice will be suspended indefinitely from the NFL.

American National Football League fans were treated to a slew of close victories and upsets on the opening weekend of the 2015 season. The Monday blues followed too close for the league’s comfort on the heels of season openers.

Earlier this year, video footage obtained by Burbank, California-based “Thirty-Mile Zone,” also known as TMZ, showed Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice dragging his then-fiancé Janay Palmer out of an Atlantic City elevator. News reports referenced a video obtained by police that showed Rice hitting Palmer and knocking her unconscious in the elevator.

That second video was obtained by TMZ and released at 1:00 a.m. Monday morning while sports shows around the country were still broadcasting highlights from Sunday’s round of games.

The incident occurred on Feb. 15 at the Revel Hotel and Casino. Evidently Rice and Palmer argued before entering an elevator carriage. New footage from inside the carriage shows Rice striking Palmer in the face. The blow causes Palmer to fall, striking her head against a handrail and apparently falling unconscious to the floor of the carriage.

Men write on Reddit of the moment they knew their marriage was over

Published on: September 4, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” I’m not getting along with my husband. We’ve been married two weeks and it was a mistake. Can’t I just get an annulment?”

Last Tuesday, men who had divorced their wives provided, via the online sharing site Reddit, a post-mortem on their marriages, divulging for the virtual world the moment they knew their martial bonds were strained to the point of no return. Their stories may be enlightening to couples—women in particular—who fear they are headed for divorce.

The Huffington Post found some common themes in the men’s tales. Trust was a common issue, or rather distrust. One man wrote that in order to rebut his wife’s constant accusations that he was cheating on her, he photographed street signs on his 25-minute journey home from work, to establish a timestamp of the entire route. Finally, he said, he just left his wife.

Another man wrote that he knew it was over when he became indifferent to his wife’s “long and frequent infidelities.” When the anger stopped, the man realized he could focus on planning an end to his “toxic marriage.”

Men have long been accused of being bad at sharing their feelings. When one man revealed to his wife that he felt hopeless and depressed and described his condition “as an existential crisis,” however, his wife laughed in his face. The wife may have thought the man was joking, but the man was serious. “I realized I didn’t really matter to her,” he said.

Polygamy ban upheld, but “Sister Wives” can still cohabit, call themselves “married”

Published on: September 2, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Does adultery affect my divorce case?”

Stars of the TLC reality show “Sister Wives” can return to their home state of Utah and live together without the fear of prosecution by the State for polygamy. Stars Kody Brown, Meri Brown, Janelle Brown, Christine Brown and Robyn Sullivan left their home while the suit was pending after “repeated” violations of their constitutional rights and “years of criminal investigation and public accusations,” according to their attorney.

The Browns sued Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and Utah County Attorney Jeffrey R. Buhman in 2011. In their complaint, the Browns acknowledged that only Kody and Meri Brown were legally married, and that the family did not hold multiple marriage licenses. Instead, “they call themselves a family in the eyes of their church.”

In their complaint, the Browns alleged that Utah’s criminal bigamy law criminalized “not just polygamous marriages but also an array of plural intimate relationships and associations of consenting adults.” They asked a federal district court to enjoin Utah’s enforcement of “laws banning and criminalizing polygamy.”

Utah statute Section 76-7-101 made a person “guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife,” marries “or cohabits with another person.”

“Gold digger” panda plays her human masters for extra treats and pampering

Published on: August 28, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What rules are there for Father’s Right in NC?”

A Canadian man may have thought his girlfriend’s made-up tale about her quintuplet pregnancy was the ultimate gold-digger’s tale, but that was before he was one-upped by a Chengdu, China-based panda named Ai Hin.

A “gold digger” is defined informally as “a woman who associates with or marries a man chiefly for material gain.” To be fairer than Jamie Foxx and Kanye West were in their 2005 hit single, “Gold Digger,” men are just as capable of engaging in gold-digging conduct. Since most men cannot become pregnant (yes, men are carrying babies to term), the pretending-you-are-pregnant-to-ensnare-the-mate phenomenon has been a strategy traditionally employed by members of the fairer sex. While not by any means the first to document the phenomenon, Daniel Defoe’s harrowing 1722 account of the life of Moll Flanders is instructive.

The lady Flanders was, in the end, a sympathetic figure. She did what she had to do to survive in a sexist and paternalistic culture. History may not be as kind to the contemporary Canadian Paul Servat’s girlfriend.

According to the Toronto Sun, Servat was tricked in a fake-pregnancy scheme by his girlfriend, who told him she was carrying quintuplets. The girlfriend’s stomach swelled, she began lactating, and the couple accepted donations from neighbors and friends. A mother of triplets who befriended the couple told CTV news that the girlfriend’s story didn’t add up. She said the girlfriend kept adding to the number of expected children.

Elder law clinic confirms spike in elder divorces, explores causes

Published on: August 26, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” I’m considering separating from my spouse; what actions should I refrain from doing?”

Larry Weiser, the director of Gonzaga University’s Elder Law Clinic, says all of the sudden, he is seeing older people wanting to divorce their spouses. The sharp rise in people aged 60 and up seeking low-cost legal advice for divorces is like nothing he has seen in 33 years at the clinic. Divorce requests in the Elder Law Clinic have tripled in the first seven months of 2014 alone.

Weiser and others at the clinic are scratching their heads. What is causing an apparent increase in older Americans seeking divorce? Weiser told the Spokane, Washington-based Spokesman-Review that the issues underlying divorce cases handled in the Elder Law Clinic are frequently domestic violence or situations in which “the marriage has been over for a long time.” Weiser said many couples seeking divorce have lived in the same home for years, but have been living separate lives, in effect, under the same roof. In other cases, one spouse left the home years ago, and now the parties are formally ending their relationship for, if nothing else, peace of mind.

However, Weiser said, in many other cases, the same common issues that plague younger couples cause older couples to seek divorce. Older couples struggle with domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse and gambling. They deal with marital strain brought on by financial difficulties, medical issues and strain brought on by family members—including children or step-children—who don’t support their parents’ marriage. This latter factor, Weiser said, is especially true in divorces in which one or more spouse is ending a second marriage.

Special considerations for couples older than 50 divorcing

Published on: August 21, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” Is there some property that the judge cannot divide?”

It used to be that if a couple made it far enough down the road of marriage, they’d be especially likely to stick it out, literally, until death forced their parting. A quarter century ago, just ten-percent of divorces in the United States involved divorcees who were over the age of 50. Now that figure is 40 percent, according to researchers at Bowling Green State University. That amounts to more than 600,000 divorces involving over-50 divorcees in 2010 alone.

Many couples—or perhaps one-half of couples—know they want a divorce long before taking the proverbial plunge. One 53-year-old divorcee, interviewed by Yahoo Finance, said she knew she wanted to get divorced years ago, when her 19-year-old daughter was still a toddler. Her daughter required day-to-day medical care, and the woman did not believe she could care for her on her own. She waited until her husband retired so that she could collect some of his pension.

Divorcing late—or later—in life raises some unique issues for potential divorcees. Certified planner Jean Ann Dorrell cautions those nearing or passing the half-century age to consider the challenging financial and other issues such divorcees may face.

One common issue is who gets the house? Many young couples may not own real estate; many older couples do. An investment in real estate is usually a couple’s largest, and the investment involves more than numbers. It is a home where children may have been raised, where the best (and worst) of times may have occurred, where someone has fled for years for comfort from the so-called slings and arrows of life. Can a couple facing divorce work together to sell the house and divide the proceeds? If one spouse decides to let the other spouse keep the house, who pays the mortgage? These are issues that need to be addressed.

Most marriages are happy and divorce rate is closer to 20 percent, says author

Published on: August 19, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” I’m not getting along with my husband. We’ve been married two weeks and it was a mistake. Can’t I just get an annulment?”

Sometimes what “they” say is not good enough because “they”—whoever “they” are–don’t have the facts. One thing “they” have always said about divorce in the United States is that Christians are just as likely to divorce as unbelievers.

“They” were wrong.

Harvard-trained researcher and author Shaunti Feldhahn has released a book in which she debunks some commonly held myths about divorce and divorce rates in the United States. The book is titled The Good News About Marriage: Debunking Discouraging Myths about Marriage and Divorce.

Feldhahn got the idea to write the book eight years ago when she asked her assistant to locate some reliable divorce statistics for an article she was writing. After searching, both Feldhahn and her assistant concluded that there weren’t “any real numbers.” They spent the next several years digging through “[t]remendously complicated, sometimes contradictory research to find the truth.”

Reporter, advocates say allowing same-sex marriage would cause wedding-business boom

Published on: August 14, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can any attorney help me with my family law needs in North Carolina?”

A 40-year veteran of the Asheville Citizen-Times says gay weddings would mean big business to Asheville. The only thing standing in the way is North Carolina law.

Dozens of scenarios could play out, “depending on decisions made at almost every legal level, from the state attorney general to the General Assembly to the Supreme Court,” wrote reporter Barbara Blake in an Aug. 3 article. She cited a July 28 ruling by the 4^th Circuit Court of Appeals striking down Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban and wrote that the way was paved for North Carolina courts to do the same.

That may be wishful thinking on the part of Blake and advocates of same-sex marriage. But as Blake points out, more than a few businesses may stand to benefit from a change in the law.

Asheville is already a destination for marriages and marriage celebrations and is considered a “gay-friendly city,” Blake wrote. Most business owners quoted in Blake’s story said they were open to all couples, and did not market themselves specifically to gay couples. The owners of one event-planning and floral design company—life partners Bobby Hill and Mark Arrington—said “the prospect of a new population of brides and grooms is exciting.” They conceded, however, that they had no plans to advertise specifically to the “gay market.”

19-year-old says she is remarrying her 54-year-old ex-husband

Published on: August 12, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What does uncontested divorce mean?”

Consenting to your wife’s divorce so that she can go “experience other men” may not seem like a normal thing to do, but little in the now-rekindled romance between 19-year-old Courtney Stodden and 54-year-old Doug Hutchison has been “normal.”

Hutchison is billed in media reports as a “star” of the 1999 film The Green Mile, a film that also featured Oscar winners and nominees Tom Hanks, James Cromwell and the late Michael Clarke Duncan. He met the “fame-hungry” Stodden when the then-16-year-old signed up for Hutchison’s online acting workshop. After courting online for several months, the pair met in person and, soon after, married. At the time of their Las Vegas marriage, Hutchison was 51 and Stodden just 16.

The marriage brought the pair more publicity than any acting gig for either party before or since. They parlayed the publicity into a reality television show about their romance. Stodden’s stint on Celebrity Big Brother U.K. left her feeling “strong and independent” and, according to reports, interested in other men. Hutchison appeared to observe that sage quote, from writer Richard Bach: “If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they’re yours; if they don’t, they never were.” He let Stodden go, sort of.

Stodden said she was aiming for younger men in her “sow the wild oats” stage, telling TooFab last year that “people say age is just a number and I said that also and obviously age isn’t just a number. I’m excited to taste new things.” Stodden and Hutchison announced their split in a joint statement, saying they would share custody of their dog, Dourtney.

In Hollywood and elsewhere, adultery is rarely an easy obstacle for couples to overcome

Published on: August 7, 2014 | On behalf of Arnold & Smith, PLLC

Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Does adultery affect my divorce case?”

Reality television star Kendra Wilkinson has met several times with Hollywood divorce lawyers, People Magazine reports. Wilkinson has said there is no chance she will reconcile with husband and former National Football League player Hank Baskett. Wilkinson and Baskett have two children—a four-year-old son and a daughter born in June.

Wilkinson is a former Playboy model who first garnered notoriety when she was featured as one of several girlfriends of Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner in the reality television show “The Girls Next Door.” The show aired from 2005 to 2009. Wilkinson ended her relationship with Hefner in 2008 and married Baskett the following year. Their relationship has been chronicled in another reality show, “Kendra on Top.” The couple is still living under the same roof, so that WE network cameras can keep rolling as their relationship unravels.

The unraveling began in June when a transsexual model named Ava Sabrina London told the National Enquirer that she engaged in two sexual encounters with Baskett. London alleged that she and Baskett exchanged information on YouTube and eventually met for sexual encounters “that never culminated in actual sex” but which she said left Baskett “very satisfied.” London passed a polygraph test administered by the National Enquirer, and RadarOnline has alleged that it obtained video surveillance that shows a truck matching Baskett’s arriving at London’s Los Angeles condo.

London said Baskett paid her to keep quiet about the encounters. Baskett has denied being involved with London.